Page 24 of Killer on the Homestead (Bent County Protectors #2)

He sighed. “No, but I can’t say that means I’m comfortable with all this.”

“You can always leave me to it.”

He shook his head, but he stayed there, hovering closer to the door than anything else.

Rosalie started on one side of the room.

She studied walls, baseboards, furniture.

There wasn’t much. Even the little closet just housed some clothes, a few pairs of boots, and little else. Nothing really personal.

It made her feel even more sorry for Owen in the hospital.

Hunter, dead without ever having a chance to have a life that was more than this…

impersonal holding pattern. She went through a nightstand, but it was empty.

Hunter’s likely, because the police would have confiscated any of his personal effects for their investigation.

She moved to the next nightstand and found more items in there.

A few receipts—from a gas-station convenience store for what looked like a fountain drink and some snacks, a Rightful Claim bar tab from before Hunter’s murder, and some fishing bait.

Nothing that stuck out as important, but she made sure to commit it all to memory so she could transfer it to her notes later.

There was a book under the receipts. A bible. Suspicious, Rosalie lifted it out of the drawer, flipped through it, then held it over the bed, pages down, and shook.

A little square of paper tumbled out of the book and onto the bed. Rosalie set aside the bible, picked up the paper, and began to carefully unfold it.

It was a map of the ranch. Boundaries were marked, and there were little hash marks where the different cattle herds were.

It was similar to the one Duncan’s mother had made, but not identical. Which meant it was Owen’s own map, outlining exactly what Rosalie had wanted outlined to see if they could connect the murder to the missing cattle.

Rosalie’s heart sank. She shouldn’t have any feelings about it, but she felt…bad. Bad for poor Owen. Bad for Hunter. Just a bad sign that maybe, just maybe, all her instincts about this case were wrong.

She moved over to Duncan and showed it to him. His expression went very hard.

“That doesn’t look too good for Owen, does it?”

She shook her head. “No, it doesn’t look good.” She looked around this little room. Why would he have this? Why would he have anything to do with the cattle? Murder was one thing, but the missing cattle?

But then again, why would he steal Duncan’s pills and take most of them himself? There were a lot of ways to hurt yourself when you were distraught. Stealing Duncan’s pills had required quite a bit of effort. None of the answers to any of those questions made much sense.

“Are you going to take that to the cops?” Duncan asked, not showing any emotion regarding how he might feel about either answer.

She should take it straight to the cops, or even just call Copeland to come out. She wasn’t even concerned about explaining how she’d come across it. She was a private investigator with the landowner’s permission to search. She had Duncan as an eyewitness.

But… “I don’t like this. Something doesn’t feel right.

” Still, she refolded the paper, then slid it into a little evidence container she’d put in her bag.

Then slid both into the bag. “Let’s search the rest before we decide what to do with it.

” She moved past him and back into the hall.

She went through room after room. Some guys had more items than others, some more personal than others, like they’d made this their home, their life.

But nothing that seemed to connect to the missing cattle, the murder, or the pills. She reached the final room at the end of the hall, but before she could reach for the knob, Duncan stopped her.

“That’s the one room I know who it belongs to. It’s Terry’s room. I don’t know how I feel about his privacy being violated. Owen is one thing, but you’re talking about the guy who’s been my dad’s right-hand man for over a decade.”

“If it offends your sensibilities, go away. I’m finishing the job.”

He scowled, but he also moved out of the way.

Rosalie tried to turn the knob, but it didn’t open. “It’s locked.”

“Makes sense. Each room is each man’s living quarters. It’s private.”

Rosalie rolled her eyes at the censure in his tone. “No one else had theirs locked. And if he’s innocent, what does it matter? Avert your eyes, Ace, I’m about to break the law.”

This wouldn’t be admissible in a court of law, but if it gave her something to go on, to investigate, she could do that. She would do that. She pulled her keychain out of her pocket, assessed which tool would be best, then stuck it into the keyhole.

After a few minutes of teasing it out, she finally managed to unlock the door and push it open. She didn’t look back at Duncan to see how he felt about it. It didn’t matter.

She expected Terry’s room to be more…cluttered. He’d been here the longest. A long, long time. A man in his fifties, no doubt planning to stay.

But it was…a lot like Owen’s. Sparse. Not personal. There were no pictures, no knickknacks, no books. Just clothes and hats, a few toiletries, and some notebooks and pens on a tiny desk.

She flipped through them. All blank.

Rosalie really didn’t know what to make of it. “Why doesn’t Terry live in the cabin you’re in? Back when we had a full crew, our foreman lived in his own place, separate from the bunkhouse. A pecking-order kind of thing.”

“Dad offered years ago when Terry got the promotion. Terry declined. Said he preferred to live with the men he was leading.”

A good sentiment for a foreman to have. It showed a loyalty she was no doubt not repaying by poking around his things. But still, something…prickled at her neck. A kind of investigative sixth sense, but she couldn’t find the center of it, the reason for it.

What was she missing here?

Duncan’s phone chimed, interrupting her thoughts. She looked over at him as he studied the screen.

“It’s Dad. A couple hands are on their way back. They’ll stop with their horses at the stables first, but we better get out of here if we’re wanting to keep this on the DL.”

Rosalie gave one last quick look around. Nothing. Nothing stuck out to her, and the police would have searched the entire bunkhouse after Hunter’s murder. She was just…desperate for answers, sadly.

She pulled off the gloves as they walked out of the bunkhouse. She shoved them into her back pocket. She blinked against the bright afternoon sky, as she walked side by side with Duncan back to his cabin.

“So what’s next?”

Rosalie knew the answer, but that didn’t mean she liked it. “I guess I’m going to take that map to the cops.”

“You don’t want to.”

“No, I don’t. Something about this doesn’t feel like the whole story. But unfortunately, without police help, I don’t think we can find the whole story.” She didn’t say the rest of what she thought: She wasn’t even sure they’d find it with police help.

“Let me grab my keys.”

“You don’t have to come, Duncan. I can—”

“Let me grab my keys,” he repeated firmly, striding over to his door.

She could leave without him. Handle this on her own. She didn’t need a partner. She didn’t need his input.

But she waited for him all the same.